As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday, 31 January 2016

Pakistan Supreme Court Overturns Ban on Hunting Rare Bird

Pakistan’s Supreme Court
Friday overturned its decision to ban the hunting of the houbara bustard, a
rare desert bird whose meat is prized among Arab sheikhs as an aphrodisiac.

News that the monarch
butterfly has nearly vanished from the planet means it may be be deemed an
endangered species. What does that mean?

Wealthy hunting parties
from the Gulf travel to Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province every
winter to kill the houbara bustard using hunting falcons.

The issue has also cast a
spotlight on traditionally close ties between Pakistan and its allies in the
Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia.

A provincial High Court
in Balochistan in November 2014 cancelled all permits for hunting in the
province, but the federal government headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif — a
close ally of Saudi Arabia — continued to issue licenses.

Last year the Supreme
Court banned hunting of the bird entirely, in a decision welcomed by wildlife
campaigners.

The International Union
for Conservation of Nature includes the bird on its “red list” of threatened
species, estimating there are fewer than 97,000 left globally.

But the federal and
provincial governments asked the court to review the decision, claiming that
controlled hunting was a tool for preservation and should be allowed.

In a judgement issued
Friday, the court said it had set aside its original decision to ban hunting of
the bird and that petitions on the issue would be listed for fresh hearings.